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Although the last year has undoubtedly been a bear market, some cryptocurrency trading platforms made a great job of proving that the success of exchange tokens is closely tied to the success of the platforms they represent. While the year was not entirely successful for the majority of them, the two exchanges — Bitget and OKX — still managed to successfully manoeuvre their way through the wreckage of both the Terra and FTX collapses. BGB and OKB tokens demonstrated positive yearly dynamics, with the former raising the all-time high (ATH) price bar several times last year.
Bitget Token (BGB) — Biggest Winner From FTX Collapse
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The BGB token turned out to be the only exchange token that stayed green all year round. The asset posted an unprecedented 136% year-over-year gain, with prices lifted in March and October and reaching its ATH of $0.39 on February 12, 2023.
Bitget massively benefited from the FTX collapse, increasing its share of the crypto derivatives trading market from 3% to 11%, according to the Token Insight report. A Boston Consulting Group report shows that in 2022, Bitget ranked among the top three crypto exchanges in terms of cryptocurrency derivatives trading volume, with a total trading volume growth of more than 300%. As the Bitcoin options market sees whales opting for bullish strategies and amidst the market volatility in general, the demand for crypto derivatives as an instrument for hedging risks and earning stable profits is higher than ever. Since the second half of 2022, crypto derivatives volume has been growing faster than the spot market. According to data from CryptoCompare, in January 2023, derivatives trading volume showed a monthly gain of 76% reaching $2.04 trillion, the largest percentage increase since 2021, and currently representing 70% of the entire crypto market.
The exchange’s foray into the spot market has been another contributing factor to the growth in the price of BGB. Bitget added AI (Artificial Intelligence), Arbitrum and NFT zone listings to its Innovation Zone for early-stage exposure to related tokens. Within a week, 21 assets were listed in the Innovation Zone, while Future (AI) witnessed the biggest gain of 1263%.
Not only that, BGB token has reached its ATH several times over the past year driven by major partnerships, market expansion and the launch of pioneering products such as copy trading. It is noteworthy that in 2022 the token never dipped below the price of 2021, unlike other cryptocurrency exchange coins. In addition, BGB rallied impressively in October, breaking its price record after Bitget announced its partnership with prominent football player Lionel Messi.
The financial and technical stability of the exchange also played a big role in maintaining a stable price of its token throughout the year. Bitget is the only exchange among today’s top five that has never faced hacking attacks. The platform management did not reduce its staff, but indeed increased the number of employees by five times to 1,100 people in January 2023. This allowed the company to minimize the consequences of the market fall and show record financial and quantitative indicators in the new year.
OKB Token (OKX) — Slowly but surely
CoinMarketCap
Although 2022 hasn’t been a bumper year in terms of gains for the OKX exchange’s token, it bounced back faster than others after falling in the first half of the year. Specifically, OKB has been showing stable price growth since July, when Manchester City Football Club announced the extension of its partnership with OKX. The deal with the club has been largely responsible for its bullish price action in the second half of the year, with the rate of increase accelerating in December and gaining 99% since then. On February 2023, another joint announcement with Manchester City sent OKB to its all-time high price of $45.66 after the exchange launched an immersive metaverse experience for the football club fans.
Another factor that influenced the reversal of the token’s price last year was a series of anti-crisis measures and the well-built market strategy of the OKX executive team. The exchange obtained a license in Dubai, published proof of reserves and launched a $100 million fund to help those affected by the collapse of FTX and joined the list of exchanges who increased their staff.
Some analysts expect OKB’s price to rise further in February. The absence of a bearish divergence indicates that the upward movement will likely continue.
BNB, KCS, MX — It could’ve been worse
Cryptoindex.com 100 (CIX100), an index that tracks the 100 best-performing cryptocurrencies, fell nearly 68% over the past year, suggesting most top coins underperformed in 2022. With only two exchange tokens emerging as clear winners from the FTX collapse, others struggled to keep up with the fast-paced and volatile crypto market.
A special surprise was the performance of the token of the now largest crypto exchange Binance, which last year became an exception to the rule — the success of exchange tokens is closely tied to the success of the platforms they represent. The value of BNB not only didn’t see its ATH in 2022, but has been following a negative trend throughout the whole year with the only short green break in April. The performance of the token was influenced by a series of scandals related to pressure from regulators on Binance US and SEC investigations. It is valued at around $316 at the time of writing, down twice from its ATH of $650 in July 2021.
CoinMarketCap
Licensing issues and increased regulators’ attention were stagnation factors for another major exchange — KuCoin. Its token, dubbed KCS, has also fallen heavily down the market cap charts since April 2022, with its price dropping more than threefold from $20 to $8.
CoinMarketCap
A similar downtrend was demonstrated by the MEXC (MX) exchange token, which went into bear hibernation in May. Currently trading at around $0.93, MX is almost 4 times lower than its all-time high value of December 2021.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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